COUNCIL

The State of the University

Reports of the Provost

Dr. Chodorow: There are two major topics that I'd like to update
you on--the Perelman Quadrangle and the 21st Century Project. First, I'd
like to introduce two key members of my team and give you an idea of
some of the other issues we are dealing with in the Provost's office.
Penn is actively planning and preparing itself to do extremely well in
the competitive world we'll face in the 21st Century. These plans will
include the ongoing recruitment of the best prepared students as well as
a superior faculty. We are also organizing our planning efforts,
especially in the uniting of our academic planning with our budget
planning and our capital planning. First, I'd like to introduce you to
Lee Stetson, the Dean of Admissions, to report to you about our
successes in bringing to Penn the best possible students and the largest
possible number of applications.

Admissions Trends and Opportunities

by Willis J. Stetson, Jr., Dean of Admissions

It is a pleasure to bring you the news from the field, on what has
been happening over the last number of years and--more specifically, in
the most recent years, as we find ourselves in a new position in the
marketplace for students. It really is a marketplace: in traveling
across the country, as the Admissions staff and as some of us in this
room have done, talking to potential students and interviewing them on
campus, it is clear that we are, as President Rodin noted earlier, at
just the position to move very nicely to the next level. We have come a
long way, and we have a long way to go, all of which is exciting.

Applications have risen in the last five years from 9,500-9,800 to
16,000 projected for this year. The interest in Penn is deeper and
wider than it ever has been: it is strong nationally as well as locally
and up and down the Eastern Seaboard. It is also more international,
another positive step.

The number of top-quality students applying to Penn and the other
"schools of choice" in this country continues to grow, and all signs
are that the numbers will increase again this year. We are projecting an
increase of 15-18% (at presstime the actual figure had risen to 24% --
Ed.) in early decision applications. We are filling over a third of the
class in the early decision period, with more students making Penn
their first choice. Joint travel with schools that are viewed as being
within our competitive group--other Ivies like Harvard and Yale and also
with Duke and Georgetown--has been very effective in bringing us to
larger audiences and is, I believe, making a difference.

We have always that the best recruiting approach for Penn is to
show prospective students what Penn offers, in campus visits that
provide op-portunities to meet with our faculty and our current
students--whose satisfaction with their experience here brings more
students behind them.

This belief is being borne out: I saw the results of a survey
done this summer among admitted students (both those who accepted
Penn's offer and those who declined), in which they were asked what they
considered to be the most important elements of Penn. Image was most
important to them, at least initially; and our personal follow-up was
the key to our success. In listing adjectives describing what
interested them in Penn, they noted prestigious at the top of the list,
then highly respected...challenging... ...intellectual...diverse (there
are probably only a few schools in the country that are truly diverse,
and Penn is one of those schools)...fun... ...career-
oriented...friendly...and then good in athletics. That may be a matter
of which sport one is considering, but we have been doing very well not
only in the more visible ones but in some of the less visible
ones,also.

Our goal is to identify, recruit, evaluate--with the help of
faculty and of staff in each of the deans' offices--and enroll the best
students in the country. Faculty have been involved in on-campus
activies, and we would like to see that involvement grow. It is very
obvious that students really enjoy being identified by an "Admissions
effort," but they like to interact with the individuals who will be
their intellectual mentors while they are here.

The competition is keen. We are competing with the very top
schools in this country, and have been for many years. We are, however,
right in the middle of the hunt for the Ivy League student. There is
no doubt that students are entering the pool in part because we are a
part of that group of eight schools called the Ivy League, and we are
one of the top institutions in the country. Therefore the stakes are
higher. It means we have to be on the cutting edge in everything we do--
in finding ways to present the true picture of Penn to prospective
students when they visit.

One question often asked is "How are we doing against Harvard, Yale
and Princeton?" It appears we are making slow but steady progress
there. We are moving into the center of the Ivy League--Cornell, Brown,
Columbia and Dartmouth. In terms of out-of-the-League pools of choice,
we are doing well against Duke and Northwestern but not as well against
Stanford, the "Harvard of the West"--or is it, as Stanford claims, that
Harvard is the "Stanford of the East"? Those institutions are the
schools with which we are overlapping by the greatest numbers of
applicants.

Financial aid remains a critical issue. We continue to do very
well but pay a high price for bringing here the very best students from
all walks of life, in all economic levels. We have to continue to do
this if we are going to enroll the very best students. Also, we find
that increasing numbers of students--and this is a growing trend--are
saying that the experience of being in an urban setting is in part why
they are looking at Penn. Security issues are important, but I think the
excitement about what is here, the fact that this is in such a vital and
yeasty place and has so much to offer, is attracting students. We have
to relish this opportunity.

It also is very clear that more students are looking for ways to
volunteer their services and to be involved in their local community. We
are seeing that in applications as students report their experiences in
their secondary school years. Whatever their community, be it rural or
suburban or urban, it appears students are reaching out. And this is
encouraging, after the decade of the 1980s when we saw so little of
that.

The bottom line, then, is that the quality of students is improving
on every level. The SATs are rising (and they will go way up this year
since they were just recentered by the College Board; we will have to
make ad-justments for this). What it comes down to is that we are, as
the president said, poised to go to the next level, and working together
will move us to that level.